Israel buying ads on Google searches of 'Unrwa' to discredit UN agency
Israel is buying advertising on Google search results for "Unrwa", in a clear attempt to discredit the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Wired reported on Monday.
According to the report, the Israeli government advertising agency bought ads for searches for "Unrwa" and "Unrwa USA" to draw search users to a website linking the agency to Hamas.
On the government-run website, Israel alleges that Unrwa has not declared whether employing Hamas members violates its neutrality, a charge the agency strongly rejects.
In January, several western countries suspended financing Unrwa after Israel accused 12 of the organisation's 30,000 employees of participating in the surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel on 7 October.
The Colonna report, which was commissioned by the UN to probe Israel's allegations, found that Israeli authorities had not provided "any supporting evidence" to back up allegations of Unrwa staff links to Hamas.
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It also made recommendations for Unrwa, which included strengthening its internal audit function and improving external oversight of project management.
Since publishing the report, several countries have restored funding to the agency, including the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada and Sweden.
Staff at Unrwa, who noticed the Israeli ads on Google, appealed to the tech giant to remove what they deemed to be a misinformation campaign. The adverts remain on Google search results, as of late August.
Between May and July, when users searched 300 terms related to Unrwa, Israel's ads came up 44 percent of the time. Unrwa USA's own advert appeared just 34 percent of the time.
'Campaign to dismantle Unrwa'
Mara Kronenfeld, of Unrwa USA, has said that the agency has spent thousands of dollars and staff time trying to outbid Israel's advertising on Google.
Despite the Israeli ads, Unrwa had 78,000 donors by August this year, a record for the organisation since it was founded in 2005.
Kronenfeld said she worried that Israel's propaganda attempts could impact people's perceptions about the role of Unrwa during the ongoing war.
“There is an incredibly powerful campaign to dismantle Unrwa,” she said. “I want the public to know what’s happening and the insidious nature of it, especially at a time when civilian lives are under attack in Gaza.”
Google employees who spoke to Wired said that the anti-Unrwa campaign was one of several ad campaigns Israel had orchestrated in recent months, drawing criticism from inside and outside the company.
A Google spokesperson said that governments can run ads that adhere to the company's policies, and that "swift action" is taken if policies are violated.
The Israeli foreign affairs ministry did not respond to request for comment from Wired.
Kronenfeld said that in recent months, for every $1 spent on online advertising, the return on investment had been $25. However, she said that competition from Israel's ads meant that it was winning fewer auctions and therefore being seen by fewer users.
Unrwa was established in 1949 - a year after the Nakba (or catastrophe) in which 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes during the creation of Israel - to provide healthcare, education and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Today, it is the second-largest employer in Gaza, following Hamas. The agency has 30,000 employees in total, 13,000 of whom are in the Gaza Strip.
In the besieged enclave, it runs 183 schools, 22 health facilities and seven women's centres, among several other facilities.
Its schools are attended by 286,645 students in Gaza, while its medical facilities have 3.4 million average visits per year, according to UN data.
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